


Repeat customer

by dogandmonkeyshow



Series: Watson's Woes JWP 2019 fics [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Second opinion, science gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 14:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19443427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogandmonkeyshow/pseuds/dogandmonkeyshow
Summary: This time it's Sherlock who needs to go to Casualty.





	Repeat customer

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Watson's Woes July Writing Prompt #1: Boom! Explosions, literal and otherwise.
> 
> A sequel to last year's JWP fic [Casualty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11373000)

“Oh no,” Marta groaned as she saw the name on the next file on the intake list. “Fiorina, can you take room 8 for me?” she called out across the nursing station.

Her colleague called back, “No,” without taking her eyes off her screen as she scrolled through the page, clicking on blood tests for her current patient.

“Rob, I'll trade you—” she started as he scurried by in pursuit of a gurney, a stabbing victim, and the two emergency responders who had brought her in.”

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he answered over his shoulder as he followed them into room 1.

With a longing glance at her half-eaten pork pie, Marta brushed crumbs off her hands, tucked the file under her arm, tapped the canister of alcohol sanitizing gel, then strode into room 8.

“Doctor Marta. What a surprise,” the patient intoned the moment she appeared past the drape.

“Public school Dracula.” She turned to his companion. “And Doctor Igor.”

“Do you have nicknames for all your patients?” Holmes inquired.

“Only the spectacularly annoying ones.”

The first man fairly preened, making Marta snort as she opened the file. The second man grunted a short laugh.. Marta looked over to Sherlock Holmes, taking in his burnt eyebrows and hair and badly scorched face. “So, what stupid thing have _you_ managed to do to yourself?” She asked as she perched on a stool in the corner.

“Experiment,” John Watson interjected.

“What kind of experiment?”

“A scientific experiment,” Holmes answered for himself, forcing the words out as if they cost him an internal organ.

“What kind of—oh, don't bother,” she added when she saw Holmes about to equivocate again. “Just tell me what happened. Either of you.”

“It was for a case.”

“Uh huh.”

“For the Met.”

“I know for a fact they have their own forensics people to do their experiments.”

“Their forensics people are morons. And unconscionably slow. Time was of the essence.”

“Am I going to have to deduce what you did to get that—” she waved at his burns “—or are you going to tell me. Just the relevant facts, if you please.”

“He blew himself up with meth,” Watson helpfully supplied.

“Uh huh.” Marta scribbled. “What were you doing with a Class A Controlled Substance?”

“An experiment,” Holmes unhelpfully replied.

Marta looked up, glanced between the two men and noted their in turn bemused and mulish expressions, and closed the file with a sigh. Then she turned to the other doctor in the room. “He has first-degree burns.”

“The explosion blew him across the room. He's got concussion,” Watson explained and Marta stared at him. Mild concussion was hardly serious.

“Why did you think you needed to bring him here?”

“His pupils looked dilated—”

“Looked or were?” Marta drew her penlight out of her pocket and shone it in Holmes' eyes. “They aren't now. What symptoms was he exhibiting?”

“I am here, you know,” Holmes grumbled.

“Yes, and you're hardly forthcoming, are you?”

He muttered something under his breath that Marta couldn't be bothered to pursue. She cocked an eyebrow at Watson.

“Headaches,” Watson began.

“Of course I did; Mycroft was there.”

“Dizziness.”

“Giddiness when he finally slunk off to his lair—” 

“Vomiting.”

“Only once. And you couldn't remember how long that curry'd been in the fridge, either.”

With practiced ease, Marta filtered out the data from the bickering and worked her way through the concussion checklist. Against the backdrop of their griping, she placed the file on the counter and walked over to Holmes, then grabbed his chin to tilt it up. He flinched at the overhead lights.

“Yes, I'd say concussion. Any balance problems?”

“No.”

“How big was the explosion?” she asked Watson.

“Pretty big.”

“How big is pretty big?”

“BOOM!” he shouted, throwing his hands in the air.

Marta stepped back and waved away Rob, who'd put his head around the doorway.

“You asked,” Watson said with a hint of “I told you so.”

She turned back to Holmes. “Blurry vision?”

“No.”

“Double vision?”

“Other than seeing you again, Doctor, no.”

She stared up at his haughty expression. With the speed of a survivor of a 1970s North Yorkshire mining town, she swung a right cross for his head. He grabbed her wrist just before she pulled her punch.

“Nothing wrong with the reflexes, I see. Good.”

“I've never seen that reflex test,” Watson chortled.

“Plinking kneecaps is boring,” she replied with a benign smile. “Go home,” she said to Holmes. "If your symptoms get worse, come back.”

“Will you be here, Doctor?” Holmes asked as he wrapped a blue scarf around his neck.

“Not if I have anything to say about it."

~ + ~


End file.
